Hot Off The Coup: Turkish pilots who downed Russian jet part of coup plot

The Hurriyet Daily News reported a few days ago that the "two Turkish pilots who played a role in the downing of a Russian jet in November are in custody over the July 15 failed coup in Turkey, an official said late on June 18.

The downing of the Russian fighter jet on the Syrian border sparked an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Russia, which ended last month when the two countries agreed to restore ties.

Seemingly the Russian government also accepts that the assault on their military airplanes was a clear plot to derail the relationships between the two countries.

The Daily Sabah reports today that "touching on Turkey's downing of a Russian jet in 2015, the incident that caused relations to deteriorate over the course of several months, Alexander Dugin (Putin's foreign policy consultant) alleged that the 'killing was exacted by forces trying to have a negative impact on relations between the two countries. He also said that the timing of the recent attack at Istanbul's Atatürk International Airport was significant, as it happened right after Turkey and Russia began the normalization process.'"